Let's Try This Again
by Brian The Elementalist
Summary: In the final climatic battle with Madara the clashing of two Mangekyo Sharingans has sent one masked ninja hurtling into the past. Now he fights to change the future to prevent the devastation from happening.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This is a new fic. Yes I know I haven't updated my other fic in ages but I really don't feel like writing that one anymore. I'll probably get back to it eventually.**

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It was a perfectly ordinary day in Konoha. The only thing of any note going on at the time was the assigning of genin teams that was going on in the ninja academy this morning. However at this moment Kakashi Hatake the renowned copy ninja awoke with a start in his apartment. His eye wide in panic as he covered Obito's sharingan with a hand. He looked around his apartment as he calmed down slightly but it was obvious he was confused. It wasn't actually his apartment. It was familiar but that apartment had been pulverized when Pain had attacked Konoha a year ago.

He frowned beneath his mask taking things in. The last thing he could remember before waking up was combating Madara and Sasuke alongside Naruto and other Konoha nins. Sasuke had just been taken down by Naruto's Rasenshuriken leaving hardly a trace of the missing nin's body. Madara had been about to retaliate with a eye-based space-time ninjutsu. Kakashi had rushed between Naruto and Madara and unleashed his own Mangekyou sharingan space-time ninjutsu and last he could remember was being sucked into a vortex of some sort that made his entire existence pain.

He could recall in horrifying detail the experience as the vortex tore his mortal body to shreds. Even Itachi's three days in two seconds torture hadn't been remotely as bad. To be quite frank with himself Kakashi wasn't really sure what was going on. He examined his apartment once more and frowned again as he looked at the shattered remains of his father's charka blade. He distinctly recalled getting the blade reforged as the war again Madara elevated. All clues seemed to be pointing to him getting hurled into the past yet his first instinct was to ignore that possibility for the moment at least until he could rule out the others.

It was possible he was trapped in Tsukiyomi again though if that was the case he was wondering why the actual torture had stopped. Sending him through a couple more of those vortexes should easily be capable of shattering his mind or anyone's mind for that matter. He was still mildly surprised he was even able to think after experiencing that. It could be a different genjutsu just meant to stall him and keep him out of the fight for a bit longer which seemed more likely. He made a quick hand sign and dispersed his charka with a shout of "Kai!"

Nothing happened in the least. He then bit his lip till it bled just to double check. He grabbed his forehead protector and slid it over Obito's eye as his normal eye narrowed glaring around his former apartment. The idea of time travel was seeming more likely by the moment and given the fact that two space-time ninjutsu's had been launched at each other it wasn't all that unfeasible. Now all that remained was ascertaining what time he had been thrown to and then working to prevent the terrible future that was going to happen.

He slid out his bed and glanced around his room again taking note of his Icha Icha calendar. It seemed like today was the day he first got saddled with Team Seven. His eye crinkled into that upside down u shape that denoted his smiling as he remembered his little genins fondly. That was soon dashed away as he then remembered the traitorous actions of the last so called loyal Uchiha. The ex-ANBU began getting ready to meet his team as his mind churned thinking of how best he could change the future. He definitely had to stop Sasuke from going to Orochimaru and given the kid's actions in the future Kakashi was sorely tempted to assassinate the Uchiha instead of letting him grow into such a major threat.

He shook his head to clear his mind of those thoughts. The current Sasuke had not yet turned into the crazed murdering psycho that he had been in the future. He just hoped that if he handled things right he could fix this. First thing he promised to do was to actually train the trio instead of blowing them off like he had. He also had to knock the three out of their current mindsets. Though from what he gathered after the fact Naruto would do that on his own during the mission to the land of waves. Sakura wouldn't do it till after Sasuke betrayed them all and Sasuke just devolved into insanity.

The jounin glanced at the clock in his apartment and sighed. If he really wanted to prevent that terrible future he wouldn't be able to be late all the time like he had so enjoyed doing. He still had an hour till he was supposed to meet Team Seven and four hours till he had actually met them. He supposed he could show up late just today and for the bell test but after that he'd have to take everything seriously. With a sigh the jounin pulled out his copy of Icha Icha and opened it up to read it, only to frown. He had already read this issue so many times that he had it completely memorized. He'd definitely do his best to prevent Jiraiya from dying this time around.

He glanced back at his father's charka blade and nodded to himself. He had four hours to waste he might as well do something productive. Getting Konoha's White Fang's sword reforged would certainly be a good idea. Not to mention reacquainting himself with the wielding of a blade. That would take some time but hopefully by the time the Chunin exams role around Kakahshi would be worthy of being called Konoha's White Fang reborn. His father had been greater than the Sannin and while he probably wouldn't be able to reach that high in the sixth months till the Chunin exam hopefully his time in the future coupled with intense practice would be enough. If he improved enough perhaps he would be able to take out Orochimaru before the man could ever sink his fangs into Sasuke.

A sudden thought struck him as he slid his forehead protector up and looked in a mirror. He focused his charka into Obito's eye and grinned somewhat evilly in satisfaction when it morphed into its Mangekyou form. If he could catch Orochimaru off guard with Kamui he would be set. Thought that still left what to do with Itachi. Due to knowledge disclosed during the war with Madara it had been revealed that Itachi had been forced to slaughter his clan against his will. The fact was that the Uchiha prodigy had tried to turn his little brother into the noose that he would hang himself with. The problem was that such an action led to Sasuke falling so deeply into the darkness that the Uchiha had gone completely insane and attempted to kill the entirety of Konohagakure.

While he couldn't fault Itachi for being guilty pushing Sasuke down the path of vengeance had led to him becoming one of the greatest threats Konoha had ever fought. If it wasn't for the fact that Naruto had learned how to fully control the Kyubi chances were they wouldn't have even stood a chance against the last two living Uchiha both who wielded the ultimate evolution of the sharingan. Lost in his thoughts Kakashi gathered up the fragments of his father's blade to bring them to the swordsmith that had reforged it in the previous timeline. The man was also the son of the original creator of the blade. Which was why Kakashi had trusted the man to fix the blade in the first place.

With that done Kakashi headed to the training grounds. One of his greatest weaknesses was his rather dismal charka stores. While they had sufficed for quite some time the challenges he knew that were to come would be too great for him to deal with at the level he was currently at. He also could polish his charka control up a bit. He had about three hours till he was to meet his squad. He would make use of them to the best of his abilities.

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**Author's note: Kakashi is probably going to seem out of character. He's going to be a lot more serious this time around for one thing. His perpetual lateness will vanish and he might just participate a bit more in his rivalry with Gai in an effort to get stronger for the coming challenges. Also I'll try to be better about updating this fic in a timely manner.**

**Also if you're wondering why I choose Kakashi I figured it was just because he doesn't seem to get many time travel fics for himself. I've only seen two so far that had him travel back and time and both of them he wasn't the only time traveler.**


	2. Chapter 2

Kakashi arrived to greet his team at the same time he did in the last time line. This time he slid the door open with his foot letting the eraser drop to the ground. He picked it up and casually tossed it onto the teacher's desk as he looked at the three. It brought back quite a lot of memories looking at his team when they were still fresh out of the academy. His one uncovered eye passed over Sasuke and a slew of far less pleasant memories surfaced as he recalled what the so called avenger had done in the future. He was hard pressed for a few moments to keep himself from attacking the currently innocent Uchiha and silently cursed realizing it was going to be a lot harder treating Sasuke like he did before with the memories of the future where the man turned into a mass murdering psychopath.

It had been Sasuke who had killed Tsunade in that final battle in Konoha. That had finally convinced Naruto that without a shadow of a doubt that Sasuke was irredeemable. It was actually fairly annoying it took the death of Tsunade to convince Naruto of that considering the fact that Sasuke had already cut down quite a few of Konoha's ninjas. Though it was quite satisfying to see Naruto drive Sasuke into the ground without much effort. It was plainly obvious that an actual fight between the two would have only happened if Naruto was still trying to take Sasuke back alive. No longer concerned with that a few distractions with Kage bunshin then entering a three tailed state with a Rasenshuriken later there were bits of Sasuke all over the place.

Of course Kakashi never got an actual chance to see how the fight had turn out having thrown himself between Madara and Naruto to prevent the truly last Uchiha from sending Naruto to some alternate dimension. He blinked when he finally realized that he had just been standing there in the classroom completely silent for a couple of minutes. Coming back to reality he noticed his team just staring at him wondering what his problem was.

"Meet me on the roof in five minutes." He said while giving them an eye smile before poofing away in a cloud of smoke as he headed to the roof.

The introductions went much the same way as they did the first time around and Kakashi didn't bother to make any changes to how that turned out. He still wanted them to pass after all on their own merit. With those introductions done Kakashi poofed away to head back to the training grounds. It wasn't that he needed to polish up for the bell test it was just that he knew he still wasn't strong enough and for that he had to train as hard as he could. It was a shame it would be a couple of weeks before his father's sword was fixed. Chakra blades were notorious difficult to forge and the smithy hadn't had any of the materials needed to fix it on hand. He had to special order them but it would take a while for the materials to come in.

The day came and went with Kakashi back in his apartment having packed away his Icha Icha novels for the time being and replacing them with books and scrolls on fuuinjutsu along with combat tactics and strategy. There were a few ninjutsu scrolls among them as well mostly ones on theory. He wasn't necessarily planning on making a new jutsu so much as understanding the interaction between jutsus particularly those of the space time orientation. He didn't know if he ever planned on repeating what had sent him into the past in the first place but he figured studying the subject a bit couldn't hurt. After all he should at least learn to be able to prevent it from happening to him by accident if he ends up liking how things turned out.

Waking on the morning of the bell test Kakashi pulled out several of these scrolls and books and began studying to pass the time. After all he needed to at least act much the same as he normally did till he passed the trio that is. After that it would be an easy enough to excuse his change in attitude as the fact that not only was he helping Obito's last loyal living relative but that he was also training his sensei's only child and legacy. It really was a shame that fact had to be hidden from Naruto but as it was right now if Iwa found out chances were several assassination teams would be sent to end the kid's life.

He suppose it would come eventually and all that he could do was just make Naruto as powerful as he could to ensure that the unknowing Namikaze would be capable of defending himself. Through he knew he'd have to pass the kid off to Jiraiya when he got the chance. The white haired member of the sannin had plenty to teach the brat after all. He smiled beneath his mask when Sakura and Naruto both yelled at him for being late once he finally arrived at the testing grounds.

The bell test proceeded much the same as it did the first time around. True there were some minor insignificant changes though Kakashi still did the thousand years of pain technique on Naruto. There was one major change he made. He needed to break Sakura of her fan girl tendencies as fast as possible. So when he cast the genjutsu over Sakura he changed things up quite a bit. The Sasuke that appeared this time was what Sasuke would be like in the future if things didn't change. The crazed illusionary Uchiha attacked Sakura and the terror caused her to pass out.

Kakashi frowned about this just hoping that it didn't somehow convince the girl that Sasuke was completely evil. He after all was going to do his best to ensure that Sasuke didn't betray the village however he was fully aware that he might not succeed and that he would have to take the boy's life if it came to that. He also changed up his brief fight with Sasuke dealing with him apparently with greater ease than he had with Naruto. He knew it was a risky gamble but he needed to break the kid's superiority complex. It had taken a bit more effort to beat Sasuke without putting away his small book on fuuinjutsu but he managed without too much of a problem.

When all was said and done the end of this bell test was much the same as the last one. He gave them the same speech he did last time thought he did stress the importance of teamwork a bit more than the first time around. However before he dismissed the three he needed to beat some more things into all of their heads. He would work out the particular training each of them would get later.

"Now as a fair warning to you three. Come tomorrow I'm going to make your lives hell. I'm going to be training you and training you hard. However I'm not only going to be working on your abilities but also your mindsets. As it is none of you have the proper one to be an effective ninja no matter what your skills are. Lets start with you Naruto." With that he favored the blond with his inverse u smile.

"You have an incredible will and while that can be useful you don't understand the concept of retreating or even strategy in general. You seem to have a knack for making up tactics on the fly but you mostly seem to resort to brute force. While that has its place it's not going to work for everything." He held up a hand to silence the blond before he began arguing back. "And you need to learn to keep your mouth shut and your emotions under control. Other ninja will be fully capable of taking advantage of your brashness leading to either your death or the death of your teammates and I'm sure you don't want that." He gave the blond an oddly sinister inverse eye smile and grinned as Naruto shrunk back against the pole obviously disturbed by his sensei's actions.

Sasuke smirked slightly at that only for it to soon vanish when he felt Kakashi turn to him with the same expression he had given Naruto. He involuntarily shivered feeling fear creep over him to his annoyance. He schooled his expression as best he could to prevent showing this fact to his jounin instructor. He was a Uchiha he would not be so easily perturbed like the dead last of the academy was if he had his say in the matter.

"As for you Sasuke while you have good focus and drive for improvement, your single mindedness of your goal and the sheer amount of anger and hatred you carry provide similar weaknesses as Naruto has. You seem calm and collected now but I have a feeling I'd only have to say one name to get you to fly off the handle much like Naruto. Your single minded focus on revenge for your clan is doing your mental health no good Sasuke. Now before you argue I'm not telling you not to seek revenge at all merely that you shouldn't devote your life entirely to such an action. After all it has been years since that event and the pain that festers in your heart won't go away just because the cause of it is no longer alive. You need to learn to let go of that pain Sasuke or it will plague till the end of your days." Kakashi paused as he saw Sasuke's expression morph from one of cool indifference to one of rage.

Just as Sasuke was about to shout and display his anger Kakashi quickly put a kunai to the child's throat stopping the outburst before it even began. "That is what I'm talking about Sasuke. That rage inside of you leaves you to vulnerable in combat. You need to quell that storm of emotions and not let it start again even if you meet Itachi again. These actions of yours will only get you killed before you can ever reach the peak of your abilities."

Kakashi withdrew his blade placing it back in his pouch once the last scion of the Uchiha had calmed down. He gave Sasuke a somewhat approving eye smile before turning towards Sakura with that expression on his face. The pink haired girl shivered slightly wondering what sort of verbal brow beating she would be receiving.

"As for you Sakura. Of the three here your mindset is currently the worse. You're only here to impress Sasuke and you're failing horribly at it. As a ninja in terms of skill and ability you are severely lacking. You have a good mind Sakura. Your grades proof that. Now use it. Ninjas do not waste all their time trying to doll themselves up or make themselves look better by going on diets or any of those other girly things. The exception is of course for infiltration missions but you're far too young for the type that kunochi normally go on. If you don't start actually training and taking this job seriously you will die and maybe end up taking your teammates with you. And I'm sure you don't want that."

Without any visible change in expression Kakashi's eye smile became significantly more frightening. The recently graduated kunochi nodded mutely thoroughly cowed by the words of her new teacher. Suddenly Kakashi brightened up once more his voice becoming overly cheerful.

"Excellent. Now that all that's out of the way. You three have the rest of the day off. I suggest the three of you spend some time together to get to know each other better and further cement the bonds of teammates. It'll do wonders later on in your ninja career." With that all said Kakashi turned around to leave. Kakashi poofed away with a cloud of white smoke obscuring where he once stood leaving his three genin behind. They looked at each other wondering just how seriously they should take their sensei's parting words about spending the rest of the day together. There had been no threat in the man's tone but they couldn't help but remember what it felt like when the man picked apart their mental faults.

The rest of their day would pass by painfully as the personalities of the genin clashed fiercely. It would be some time till the trio became an effective team. Though, thankfully, Sakura was already showing signs of being less of a fangirl. Naruto and Sasuke on the other hand were far more ingrained in their ways and if there was a slight difference in their personalities it wasn't noticeable. Kakashi smiled beneath his mask as he watched Team Seven attempt to bond. It brought back memories of this more peaceful time the first time around for him. It was such a stark contrast to how life had been degrading in Konoha ever since the Suna/Oto invasion.


End file.
